


Error Nothing Is Here

by grunge_ish



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Awkward Friendship, Bad Jokes, Bad Parenting, Cats, Consensual Mind Control, Incurable Ilness, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Masks, Mostly original characters, Names Have Meaning, Nonbinary Character, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 05:47:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17616659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grunge_ish/pseuds/grunge_ish
Summary: Lea hates the world and for good reason.As a demigod she was given certain abilities by her godly parent, but not all demigods are blessed.





	1. Beginnings

****

**_August 1st 2018_ **

 

    _Being a child of Apollo seems fun right? You get to heal people, shoot bows like its second nature, sing like a muse, bend light, and/or compose gorgeous poetry. But heres the thing. Not all children of Apollo are blessed. Some of them, like me, are cursed. My name is Lea Whittaker and I am a weapon in the shape of a teenage girl._

_I'm not even allowed to sleep in the Apollo cabin. I sleep in the attic of the Big House, where the oracle used to live. Why? You may ask, well, simply being around me can cause people to fall horribly ill and my insults not only hurt emotionally, but physically, and I'm usually in a pretty bad fucking mood._

_You see, I carry a disease that kills people on impact. So, I haven't taken off my mask and gloves in 11 years. Which makes really awful tan lines and a really pissed off me. Of course, my life isn't all bad. I can walk amongst the normal half-bloods as long as I have my mask and gloves on, but most of them fear me. Who wouldn't? I'm practically pestilence in human form. But, that's enough of my whining. You didn't sign up to hear me talk about how my life is awful, you signed up to read an amazing and humorous story of growth and strength. Like Percy Jackson's story or like Annabeth, the architect of Olympus's story. Let me warn you first, I am not them. And there is no fiber in my being that wishes to be like them. I know my place and I know what is written for me. The Fates have decided and I'm just here for the ride._

 

After closing the worn leather book, Lea pulled down her mask to allow for an easy breath of the stale attic air. She was surrounded with decay and rot. Where she belonged, at least in her mind. 

"Leia! Are you up there? Someone wants to talk to you!" Mr. D called up to her. She rolled her eyes and pulled her mask back up. It was probably Will, the head of the Apollo Cabin during the year, or Nico, his long-term boyfriend, bringing her lunch. Adjusting her gloves, she climbed down the rickety ladder that was used to climb up and down from the attic. After climbing down, she saw that she was wrong. It wasn't Will or Nico, nor did this stranger have lunch for her. As soon as she was down, Mr. D went to his office. He hated kids, especially half-bloods. 

"Who are you and what do you want?" She was blunt, but not rude, she had learned her lesson about being rude. The girl in front of her looked lightly offended, but shrugged it off. 

"I'm Thalia Grace and" The girl, Thalia sounded like she wanted something from Lea. 

"Sorry, but I'm going to stop you right there. You want me to join the Hunters of Artemis, right?" Before the girl could reply Lea spoke again. "I'm going to level with you. I won't join. I have no want and no need. Someone will end up hurt. Trust me." Thalia started again, but Lea just turned to go back to her attic.

"It's not about that." Thalia called after her, but Lea didn't stop climbing. "There's a new kid in camp. A kid like you." That made Lea stop climbing. 

"There's what now?"

"A new kid in camp. He's an Aphrodite kid and he won't uncover his face or speak to anyone." Lea turned to face her. "Piper asked me to get you. She thought you might be able to get through to him." 

"Oh, fun, a charity project. Did they send you because I won't talk to any of them?" Thalia nodded sheepishly. Lea took a deep breath and jumped down from her spot on the ladder. "I'll see what I can do. But don't expect me to be like this all the time." They walked out of the Big House, the first time in weeks for Lea, but her eyes adjusted to the sun easily. Her charity must be making her father proud, she mentally scoffed at the idea. After walking for maybe a minute, they stopped at the Aphrodite cabin, sitting on the steps was a vaguely human figure. As they neared, it turned out to be a boy. Thalia stopped when he looked up, a mask covering his features, but Lea kept walking. 

"Leave me alone." He said in a muffled voice. 

"Trust me, thats what both of us want, but I was told that you're like me, so I thought I should at least attempt to talk to you." He turned away from her. "By the way, I'm Lea, I'm an Apollo kid." She sat down next to him. "So what did your mom curse you with?"

The boy looked over at her incredulously. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what I said." She motioned to her mask with a gloved hand. "My dad cursed me with the magical ability to make people sick." Her voice was rife with sarcasm and annoyance. "If I took off the mask, being this close to me would kill you." He touched his own mask lightly.

"Just looking at me causes people to fall into an obsession, sexuality doesn't matter. They see me the way they want to see me." His voice was small and meek, and he refused to look her in eyes. "And I can force emotions on people by making eye contact."

"Ouch. I can imagine the awfulness of that. Did you dad get you the mask to protect you or did you grab it?"

"I made it. You can see any part of my face this way." She noticed as he spoke that his body was covered head to toe, no part of his skin was showing. 

"It's good craftsmanship." He nodded his thanks. "Look, this is an awkward interaction and it'd probably be less awkward if we went to where I stay." She motioned to all the people staring at them. 

"No. I can't be around other people."

"Lucky for you, I live in quarantine. Not a person in sight." She stood up and didn't offer to help him up. "Plus, being around me repels people extremely well. Only a few people dare to approach me." She heard a muffled chuckle from him and smiled. She didn't want to share her space, but she knew if she didn't offer to help him she'd feel like actual shit. 

"Okay. But, promise me you'll cover your eyes if I ask you too?" She nodded. 

"Promise me you'll hold your breath if I ask you too?" It was his turn to nod. 

"Lea!" They both turned to see who it was. It was Will, the last person she wanted to see. She started walking, pulling the new kid behind her, trying to get away before Will caught up with them, but he always caught up with her somehow. "Lea, you weren't in the attic for lunchtime. Did you finally decide that it was a good idea to rejoin the real world?"

"Nope. I was just told that I had stuff to do and that stuff is showing a new cursed demi around, so I've gotta get on that. I'll grab lunch later." She started walking again, desperately trying to ignore Will and get back to her attic. The new boy kept up with her pretty well, but she was still dragging him.

"Who was that?" Came the muffled question that confirmed her hope of Will leaving her the hell alone. 

"Will Solace, it's his personal mission to make sure that I'm not always alone." She finally stopped at the steps of the Big House. "But, he's not very good at it. Seeing as this is where I spend most of my time." 


	2. What Do You Owe?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lea and the new kid talk about their respective lives while other stuff goes on in the background
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> I swear my content will get more better and more organized.  
> Maybe.

 

**_August 2, 2018_ **

 

 _So, I have a new_ _roommate. He's an Aphrodite kid, his name is Alexander and that's kind of all I know about him besides his powers, but those are just about as shitty as mine. His mask is really cool though. It's made of this plastic stuff that he molded himself, it covers his whole face and has mesh over the eyes so he can't make eye contact. It's got this nice geometric pattern on it too, which kind of makes it look like its cracked and patched up with gold. He painted that too. I wonder if I could get him to make my mask look a little better. It's just plain right now because I hated having to wear it for so long. I don't hate it as much anymore, its just a part of me at this point._

_I have to sleep with it on, so I don't accidentally kill Alexander, but he wears his mask to bed incase I wake up and see him. So its a fair trade off in my opinion. We haven't left the attic since I brought him up here, one because we get weird stares and people whisper about us which freaks Alexander out and pisses me off, and two because we've been clearing out a space for him to sleep in. I have my half of the room and he has his. Every now and then he leaves to get food or another trash bag and I get to take off my mask for a bit, which is a pretty good relief. Piper has been sending random kids to try and get Alexander to talk to her, but I send them away. He'll interact with them when he's ready. Plus, all of them are hella annoying, which makes me mad and it's not fun having the threat of accidentally breaking someone's nose after an insult._

 

 

 

"Hey Lea, whats that?" Lea feels Alexander looking over her shoulder and into her book. She slams the worn leather cover down, sending up a wave of dust. 

"A journal. I got into the habit a while ago and it's just second nature now." He nodded and sat down close-ish to her. 

"So, what brought you to Camp Half-Blood? You don't sound like you're from around here."

"I'm not. I'm from Delaware." She put her book off to the side and turned to face Alexander, "Are we swapping stories now? Feels fitting, we're basically living a sleepover." Alexander chuckled, the mask muffling most of it. 

"I guess we are. You can tell by my accent, I'm from a few miles north."

"Thats fun. So, I'll tell you how I got here and you'll tell me how you got here?" He nodded. "No lying allowed?"

"None. I can't judge you, trust me, I've probably done worse." She shrugged. 

"Alright, so, I used to live with my mom in Delaware." Lea started, her voice unenthusiastic, "She's a pathologist, so I was her greatest challenge yet. I was homeschooled and have been wearing a mask like this since I can remember. She worked at a local college and brought me along a few times. I was pretty young the last time she brought me to her class. Maybe 9 or 10." Lea ran a gloved hand through her hair. "One of her students wanted to show me something across the room, so she grabbed my hand to guide me over there, but when her skin touched mine, she started, uh, convulsing. She fell on the ground, a sore forming where we had touched. Her face started turning blue and her veins were uncomfortably visible," Lea swallowed uncomfortably. "Uh, sorry. Uh, eventually she stopped breathing, and from then until I was in my room at my house, it was a complete blur. My mom called someone and suddenly I was in a car headed for Jersey and when I got out, I was here." She smiled softly and more than a bit awkwardly.

"I didn't get moved to the Big House for a while. I was staying with the normal demis in the Apollo Cabin and one of them thought it would be funny to steal my mask. You can imagine what happened next." Lea looked down at her hands, remembering the demi's face. His name was Nate, he was 15, and he was one of the musical Apollo kids. If she tries hard enough, she can still hear him laughing. His laughter sounded like wind chimes. 

Lea looked up as she felt a hand on her knee, Alexander had moved closer to give her a reassuring touch. "I understand." His voice was so small yet so caring that Lea couldn't help herself. She threw herself forwards and hugged him. Her hands felt only cloth as she wrapped her arms around him and no part of his body stiffened with pain as he hugged back. "I understand." He whispered again, and this time, Lea believed him. 

"It's your turn." Lea pulled away from him and wiped at her face with the bottom of her shirt. 

"I guess it is." Alexander took a deep breath and fidgeted with his hands. "I lived with my dad for a while, and I haven't ever worn a mask. When I was with my dad, he kept me locked in the backroom, he'd visit me before he left for work with enough food for breakfast, lunch, and a few snacks. Um," A loud crash sounded from downstairs and both of them turned to the ladder. 

"Would you like to finish your story or do you want to check that out?" 

"Lets check that out. It sounds bad." Lea suspected that he just wanted to get out of telling his story, but she obliged. Telling hers had been one of the most difficult things she had ever done. They climbed downstairs together to check out the noise. Nothing in the Big House had fallen over or down, so it had to have been from outside. Neither of them wanted to go outside, but their curiosity got the better of them. So they went outside and saw a giant scorch mark on the ground. Like lighting had hit right in front of the Big House, and a kid standing a little bit in front of it. 

"What the hell happened?" Lea asked the kid standing in front of them, an older African-American girl who looked just as confused as they were. 

"I think I just got claimed by Zeus." The girl answered in a heavy southern accent. "Either that, or there is some other lighting god that I had no idea about."

Lea rolled her eyes slightly. "Congrats. I'm sure literally everyone heard that, so your counselor should be here soon. He's blonde and blue-eyed, will most likely be flying. You can't fucking miss him." With that she and Alexander decided to go back into the Big House. Once they were settled in their previous spots, Alexander started speaking again. 

"So, like I was saying, I lived with my dad for a while, and when he'd visit me, bad things would happen. You can imagine which one of my powers manifested first." He swallowed uncomfortably and began to fidget even more. "Eventually, he stopped visiting me for a while. And when he did, I could drain his drive and he's forget why he had come in there. After about 9 or 10 years of living in hiding and wanting to die almost everyday, I had a window of escape. He was going to be out on a business trip for a few weeks and had hired a maid." Lea could barely hear him speak, with the meek quietness of his voice and the muffle of the mask, it was like he was barely speaking at all. But she didn't stop him, she had to be there for him in a time like this. "One of the days when she was there, I began screaming for help. She unlocked the door, with the keys he had left her, and found me. By that time I had made a makeshift mask out of an old shirt of mine and refused to take it off. She took me from my dad's house and allowed me to live with her. Of course, she loved making eye contact and I didn't have a control on my powers yet, so she was always so angry with me or so sad that she wouldn't leave her bed. I found the plastic to make my mask in the make-shift room she had given me, which I refused to lock. It had been her old craft room." Lea wanted nothing more in that moment to say a few words to the people who had made Alexander's voice so meek with fear and anxiety. "I escaped thanks to a satyr who lived nearby. He brought me here only a few weeks after I had made my mask." She couldn't see his face, but the catch in his voice told her enough.

She didn't move to comfort him, knowing what he had been through. Instead she gave him a reassuring look and slightly opened her stance so that he could hug her if he wanted to. And he did. He didn't throw himself into a hug like she had, but he laid his head on her shoulder and cried. Most likely reliving the memories. She stroked his covered head and whispered in what she hoped was a calming manner. "It's alright. They can't find you here, you're safe. I promise."

Her own words surprised her. Since when had she been this sentimental?

What was this new kid doing to her?

**Author's Note:**

> This is more for me than anyone else. 
> 
> So, enjoy it or not, thanks for reading.


End file.
